Crawl Space
by twilightfucker
Summary: "The fire was still burning by the time he'd dragged her there. The streets were littered with onlookers. The ambulance had left, the firemen were loosing." A meditation on time and tragedy. Maybe this one has a happy end, it's hard to tell.


Authors Note: I literally have like 5 paragraphs to finish for The Changes and The Changed so don't throw stones yet. I'm feeling melancholy folks, my health ain't great but my father says I shouldn't say such things online. The insurance companies will somehow use it against me. My father tends to be a bit paranoid. This was a drabble I never expected to finish but here it is and I don't hate it. I think...

She didn't necessarily believe that he was her whole world. That her life hinged on his recognition of her. Her devotion was not that deep. Yet there was a large part, more of a physical reaction, a chemical cause and affect that occurred when he was nearby.

As she aged and time flew her annoyance at herself for never garnering even the slightest reciprocation from him, she began a vicious method of removing any and all such feelings. It was sabotage and not the sort that came naturally to hide her oppressive love of him.

She realized after the first time up there alone on that roof that it was easier to say those three words without failing. She realized after everything it was easier, when he let her down, to succumb to the fact that he would never, and if he never would then she could stop trying and failing to show him.

So she stopped trying to make him see her with pranks and spitballs and all the other acts of 9-year old romantic subterfuge that had been her life for so many years. And while it surprisingly wasn't as soul zapping as the first time there was an obvious change. It was obvious enough for him to recognize it and this only made her angrier. But now her anger was different, it didn't manifest in her nicknamed fists or playful cruel jokes. All that was left were her coal red eyes and the scowl she'd worn since birth.

He saw it because he'd been watching her, since it happened with a look of fear and perplexity. He saw her transform draw her self in. Saw her for the shell she was and this was upsetting. It was upsetting that he could never pay attention to the genuine article so why bother coming out of the blue and pink spiral she had wound herself into.

But he persisted, and while her feelings may have been subdued, stomped down, she never really got over the physical reaction. The seizing, prickly heat and nausea that came over her when she got a whiff of his deodorant and shampoo mixed with whatever intoxicating sent that was all him. And she hated herself for it.

And she hated that he pretended to care, and she hated that he was too dense to even realize why he did. Guilt, guilt she could tell each time. It was written plain across his face. He didn't love her and never would.

She was brought up to fear pity like the plague but there was little she could do to deter his intentions. No amount of screaming, or threatening glares made him disappear for long. The attention she'd always dreamed of in her best and most restful nights were now unsettling and not just for her.

All his friends (her classmates) questioned his motives, called him crazy, picked on her for tormenting him so, which she found heavily funny, almost to the point of tears.

All he could say in his defense was she was his friend and he was worried about her. It had been a lie then, but over the course of three years it became a precarious truth, a somewhat truth, though it seemed nothing changed. She was still withdrawn and had a tendency to pull a natural barrier of poison spikes around her shell. She still gave him little, if anything at all, but there were times when he was right to worry and because she had few options and because her one confidant had taken up seeing someone who absolutely despised her, she found herself leaning, begrudgingly, on him.

She was 12 when her mother tried to do something nice for her. Her birthday had been forgotten like usual and three months later she tried to make a cake. She fell asleep with the gas on. No one was killed but something caused a spark, which prompted the explosion that burned down the house and half her mother's body. Another Pataki lesson learnt. Nothing good comes of kind deeds.

She had been absent from her home that day, which she was apt to do more and more as time went by. As it was a Saturday she had been down by the harbor. She went there often, having found a secluded spot away from the general merriment. It was where she came to watch and write, or simply sit. He knew this and it was he who found her first, gently dosing with a notebook lying open across her chest. He caught his name scribbled once or twice in a color of deep burgundy.

She wasn't surprised to see him, nor that he looked apprehensive, for he looked that way most of the time when first approaching her. She had gotten used to that look. What startled her was when he grasped her hand pulling her to him, because he'd learned early the affect of his touch on her. He was careful to use it sparingly.

The fire was still burning by the time he'd dragged her there. The streets were littered with onlookers. The ambulance had left, the firemen were loosing.

"Helga I'm so sorry" he had said tugging at her, pulling her to him. This time his touch didn't bother her, his long gangly arms that seemed to be growing first wrapping around shoulders that she held by her ears.

She felt nothing, no not sorry, maybe relief.

He took her to the boarding house and up to his room where she sat staring at the crawl space between his bed and the door. It was just big enough for two people to lie flat, a double coffin. She wanted desperately to exist there, just a part of his wall, something that housed him.

He went to use the phone, to call the hospital, to be useful in someway since he did not know what to do with her silence, her sullenness her strangeness.

She stared at the spot till he came back, until he told her they were both all right, she wasn't alone "but".

And then he had said but.

When she broke it wasn't out of pity for her mother, out of a sense of loss. 'It would be worse' she thought and knew it to be true. She repeated and repeated this truth as his frightened hands tried to hold her together. But he didn't understand those words, didn't know she was sobbing out of fear, and selfishness, and certainly not out of grief.

When she did her best to break free he held her back, his arms surprisingly strong. She hadn't known all this time he was made of steel, that her name calling, "shrimpy", "wimp" had been wrong. Had he always been so strong, strong enough to hold her in? These thoughts made her vicious and her fists beat him back until she was free and hiding in that cubbyhole among old science books and collage paper.

And when she was against the far end, where there was only dark and solitude, she told him she was fine and to let her sit there for a while, just to leave her alone, "please". She had said "please" and he had said "Oh Helga" from where he sat by the entrance and light his face marked with guilt and apprehension.

It never changed.

Her father came not the next day but the day after, weeping first and then screaming, saying, "I thought you were dead girl! I thought you were dead." And not even in death could he remember her name.

His grandfather, who her father hated and who hated her father back, begrudgingly offered a room eyeing her with a brand of pity that had nothing to do with the fire, or her mother's broken body.

They stayed there for a month in which time she stopped sleeping at night and spoke even less and was seen very little by the other boarders. She shared a room with her father, who never stopped his complaints. Now it was their "shithole" filled with ancient dust and cheap cots with bedsprings that sunk and screamed during the night.

She took to sleeping in his crawl space after school while he stayed out playing baseball or becoming ever more popular at the playground.

When he found her out he asked why and she said her father snored, which he did, but that was barely the reason. The next day the books were gone and a pillow and yoga mat with a crocheted blanket sat in its place. She didn't thank him because she didn't know how.

She began to sleep there with the small square door snuggly fit in its entrance. She'd rigged a light because it was pitch dark without it. Sometimes she stayed the night. He never complained. Sometimes in the afternoon when she was reading or writing or dozing she'd hear him come by with friends, grab something and leave, always making sure everyone was quite. Sometimes it was just him and Gerald and she would listen, pretending to sleep, be nonexistent, while Gerald loudly complained, called her weird, kicking the wall for her benefit. But then he stopped bringing him around and she only had to deal with his glares at school, and not in her sanctuary.

Her father found a place closer to the beeper store. Her mother came home soon after that. She had seen her at the hospital and knew it would be worse. It was hard with her ruined skin and altered voice.

It took her a year to master consonants, not that it mattered. She knew what she wanted, what she'd always wanted and now just needed more of. She was too much of a coward to kill herself quick, Bloody Marys with extra Tabasco sauce would do. The difference was now she fixed her mother's drinks.

Her sister stayed a week in the new apartment, cried the whole time, and then left claiming the tragedy was too much for her. She was relieved, her father wasn't, had begged her to stay. He had no idea how to raise the girl, how to run the house. '"Neither did Miriam'" she joked.

Her father blamed her without saying a word. But she wasn't a baby and barely a sister, and hated when people didn't use her name. So she was happy to see her go, if she could call herself happy.

When the fact that she wasn't got too hard to bear she would leave, always finding her way back to the sanctuary he had made. It was her habit to scale the fire escape and wait perched by his skylight, waiting for a chance to sneak in. When she was safely between the walls she'd knock, her fist against the thin wood, so when he came back he'd know.

When she was 13 almost 14 he caught her sneaking in with scratches on her chin and shoulder. She was muddy but had taken off her shoes. It was one of those moments his face revealed something she was unsure about and it frightened her. Because she was so sure he had no idea.

They had fought that night. His voice kept jumping around, one moment deep with resonance the next high and childlike. That night she stayed in his bed, in his arms, but only because he refused to let go. It was a long night of biting and struggle, cries and eventually defeat. There were no romantics just a settling, a giving in.

At school they never spoke, she never acknowledged him; in his home it was different. Sometimes they laughed.

In the beginning very little, but as time went by he'd hear her giggle behind the wall, a tinkling noise that happened when he was caught talking, sometimes singing. Then later by its entrance her little face grinning from behind her arms as she lay on her belly a book in front of her, some homework. And then sometimes behind nothing at all, and those moments he liked most of all, her face changed her eyes bright almost happy. There were times when he made her almost happy and he liked that he had that power.

Maybe that was the beginning.

When they were freshmen in high school he found a girl who liked his kindness and deep green eyes as much as he thought he liked her sweetness and dirty blond hair. He didn't know why, was ignoring why it bothered him so much that the other girl didn't come around like before. Was confused at his reaction when finally he asked and she said, "I thought you'd want the privacy".

They'd moved from the cramped apartment to a bigger house, bigger than the first, across town. She used this as an excuse but often went elsewhere, the bay, mighty Pete, the dump. He'd seen her but couldn't find the way to ask again and make her believe it wasn't for a reason.

He started to act weird around her so she disappeared some more. They no longer went to the same school. Her father was making more money, was trying, making an effort to change her into something he could handle. He'd see her with her green uniform, the long skirt the other girls pinned to be short, her white shirt un-tucked, those black boots and no bow.

Before the winter break he heard her mother was back in the hospital. The dirty blond turned out to be needy in a way he didn't know how to fulfill. But Helga didn't come back and he started sleeping in her sanctuary fingering the elaborate doodles she'd left on his wall.

In the spring he saw her leaning out the back of a speeding car. Her eyes were black and adversarial and he worried when she leaned further to scream at him as they disappeared down the street. He realized he missed making her laugh; he missed wielding the power that he had over her. The thought didn't make him braver and it wasn't until the summer did she give him a chance. She was busy being destructive.

But by that point he wasn't sure how to make her smile and so settled for apologizing. For what he wasn't sure and neither was she and because of this she grew angry. "It was bound to happen anyway Shortman" she'd stopped calling him by the other names and this one held no intimacy, which made him sad.

"She's getting a new liver, though I'm not sure why. She's just gonna ruin this one too," she paused, her voice held no sympathy, "She wants to die Arnold, that's all" it's coldness frightened him because he'd never really known. But he could see now what the space between his walls had kept her from.

She had never tried to be beautiful; he noticed this now because he finally saw her that way. She wore a lot of black, no pink. Green because she had to. It made her pail skin look yellow and sick. The black made her look unapproachable, which she was.

He liked that she never gave in and made an effort. Though at times he wondered would the marks disappear if she did. It made him proud and furious to know there was no option but for her to be strong. He wanted her to lean again, come back to his walls so he could make her laugh; he had power in his domain but she'd grown away from that place.

Instead they found common ground, or he made her share her get-a-ways. The rock by the bay just beneath the dock, two lawn chairs on the edge of the dump, Mighty Pete on his feet or in the still standing house, he searched until finding her. Sometimes they sat quietly, because it was easier and less dangerous to not say a word. Sometimes she screamed and these moments were better because he got to interject, and his effects couldn't be taken back, and it changed things.

By 17 he'd come to fully admit that the tables had turned but could still not find the courage that she'd managed at 9. He had always been a wimp and now she knew it but wouldn't let herself realize why.

That year her mother died and she let him stand by her side at the funeral. He watched in disgust as her sister stole the show, clawing at earth, her face a perfect mask of despair. Yes perfect.

Helga had stood by his elbow stolid and unaffected. When he tried to rub the spot between her shoulders she shrugged and said, "She got what she wanted" and walked away leaving him to frown at her old best friend.

When he found her it was not in the tree, or by the water, or near mountains of trash but in a place he thought she'd never return to. He'd come back to his room a failure only to find she'd torn up his bed, thrown books and knocked down posters and pictures from the wall. He'd missed the storm though and when he stuck his head into her space she didn't recoil, or react, but continued to wail, (because this girl didn't weep) curled on her side.

At the moment he was brave enough to lie beside her. Because she was no longer strong he built his body as a wall around her back. There was no space for her to retaliate or retreat to. There was only enough to crawl closer, which he did, wrapping her in arms he'd finally grown into. What he told her then wasn't as succinct as her confession. It didn't end and begin but instead explained a complicated picture he'd discovered while trying to dodge blame, while lying in there alone tracing her doodles. He told her he wanted to make her smile and could they start there. It hadn't been a question.

The words that came out were "No" and "I can't" and "you couldn't possibly". She had been so sure of it all that she'd given him up, but had never gotten over the chemical reaction. So when he said "Try" she turned and clutched his black dress shirt, the one she'd admired while ignoring the event that produced it. And when he said "Oh Helga" she forgot to tell herself it was out of pity and instead of pushing him away kissed him.

There was enough space for two people to kiss and little else, so they kissed. Her kisses were just as passionate as that time, all those years before, but he could also taste fear and now distrust lingering in her breath. He didn't know how to reassure her but thought, 'maybe over time'. He kissed her with all the compassion and love that was owed to her and hoped it was enough for now but feared it wouldn't be.

It wasn't, not that time or the one after, and he knew he'd waited too long to fall and now she'd been too damaged to accept him, believing him to be to perfect, and that she was unworthy. But she came back every once and a while to lie in that sanctuary with him. To let him think he was fixing her and maybe sometimes really managing. It took time but he got her to smile. It took even longer to get her to trust but by 18 they'd managed to overcome some of it. Not most of it but enough to make her laugh and to let him lead her to the greater world outside.

All his friends, (her old classmates) picked on them, him for liking her, her for casting the spell, but it didn't matter, or not enough to break down all the mileage they'd accrued on their journey.

When they were 18 and school had begun for that last important year, his grandfather died and it was her turn to be strong and place herself at his front to keep him from falling. She opened her world up more for him, to get lost in, and they spent nights and morning and days in the place between his walls crawling toward acceptance, crawling further toward each other.

Sometimes it is easier to get to where you are heading this way, the slow and agonizing way. If they had walked they might have just passed each other by. If she had run he never would have followed. She knows that if it had been any other way she would have missed this, not have recognized it for what it was. He knows that he would have always wondered, passed it off as guilt, but still.

They're there still, there in the space he made for her, the space she filled, figuring out each moment and making it their own, because they've finally figured out the trick in doing it. They're not always happy, often there is still much to fix, or get over or patch up, but they do it together, for now. They hope forever, but it's hard to predict such things. So instead they pray and crawl toward a better tomorrow because walking and running was never much their style and because they're happy in the space they made between her walls and his walls. A place of sanctuary.

Authors note: I always have trouble ending pieces like this. Hope it wasn't too drolllllllll... okay I'm going to sleep now. zzzzzzzzzz Edit:

I forgot to say I got the crawl space idea from the episode where Steely Phil's friend comes back and Arnold tries to get them to stop fighting each other. There was just this moment up in his room where I noticed the crawl space at the bottom of his bed. I love crawl spaces don't know bout the rest of you but I always wanted an attic room kinda for that reason. Okay explanation over!


End file.
